


Assemble

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Avengers AU, F/M, For a Superhero AU There is Next to No Action Scenes in This, Friendly Reminder that Garcia Flynn is a Hero, In Which the Author Drops a Fuckton of Feels On You All and Then Runs Away, Jessica Logan Founded SHIELD Because Jessica Logan is a Badass, M/M, Multi, Superhero Registration Act
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 11:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19208119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Iron Maiden, Captain America, Black Widow, the Hulk, the Goddess of Thunder and Prophecy, and Hawkeye. Together, they are the Avengers. And together, they work to save the world.But this isn't about that.It's about them saving each other.





	Assemble

The Quinjet was flying, but for once, Lucy wasn’t in charge of the controls.

Rufus was passed out in the back, battered and bruised, as Jiya held his hand and applied first aid, _saeiqa_ resting against the wall to the side. Amy was on another biobed, also passed out, her heartbeat monitor holding steady, the sound soothing Lucy, letting her know her sister was all right.

Rufus was going to hate himself when he woke up and saw what he’d done.

Lucy walked over to the front, where Wyatt and Flynn sat, Wyatt in the co-pilot’s seat. He looked dead on his feet, which made sense seeing as he’d been the one single-handedly holding back Mothership while the rest of them were either down for the count (Amy, Rufus) or trying to help their friends (Jiya, Flynn, Lucy).

She tapped him on the shoulder. “Go back and rest, I got this.”

Wyatt jerked, prying his eyes open. “Mm, y’sure? You don’t want to sit with Amy?”

“She’s survived worse.” Lucy hated that it was true, but Amy had. They both had.

For a second she smelled harsh, dry, arid desert and bile rose in her throat. Lucy shoved it down. “Go on.”

Wyatt staggered to his feet and went to the back, sinking down into a chair. He was out like a light in seconds.

“I guess the super serum can’t erase your need for sleep,” Flynn said quietly.

Lucy sat down in Wyatt’s empty seat. “Where are we going?” she asked.

Flynn could fly the Quinjet. They all could. But he rarely did—he was usually in the back, selecting his arrows and teasing Amy and Jiya.

“Off the grid.”

Lucy bit her lip. “We should really report to—”

“To Denise?” Flynn made a scathing noise and shook his head. “No. Not with the news the way it is.”

“Why, what’s the news—”

“When we get there,” Flynn said, glancing back at the others.

Lucy watched him for a long moment. “All our safe houses are on the grid,” she said softly.

“Not this one.” Flynn paused. “It’s in France.”

“France?”

Flynn cleared his throat, staring ahead out the window, avoiding her gaze. “It’s my—my brother’s farm, outside of Paris. My older brother Gabriel.”

Lucy stared at Flynn, realizing this was a whole new aspect to her teammate, a whole part of his life, that she hadn’t even known.

 

* * *

 

Then again, Lucy Preston couldn’t really blame anyone for hiding parts of their life. Especially in their line of work, and undoubtedly to protect a sibling.

She knew what it was to fail to look after family.

Carol Preston had been formidable in her field. A fantastic inventor. She’d built Preston Industries from nothing, had married well and used that money to grow it even more. She’d worked closely with Connor Mason, who had mentored Lucy after Carol’s death from lung cancer.

Carol Preston had also created weapons.

When Lucy had taken control of the company following her mother’s death, she had announced to the board her intention to cease weapons operations.

Certain people weren’t pleased with that, and Lucy had found a routine trip to an army base turned into a kidnapping—and her little sister Amy brought along for the ride.

She’d spent God knew how long in that desert cave system with Amy, held for ransom, interrogated, told to agree to continue the weapons manufacturing or else.

Lucy had refused.

She’d done something else instead—they wanted a weapon? Well, sure, they’d get a weapon.

Her.

The first escape attempt ended in disaster. Amy was taken from her, and she found that shrapnel was working its way to her heart.

She’d worked fast, saved herself at the cost of carrying a powerful experimental energy source in her chest for the rest of her life. Rebuilt her suit, and blasted her way to freedom, where she’d been picked up by a convoy.

Amy—Amy had been gone.

Nobody knew where she was. There was no sign of her. Lucy had downed what felt like her weight in vodka to escape the memory of her sister haunting the corners of her eyes, her mind, taunting her, _you’ve forgotten me, you’ve forgotten me, you’ve forgotten me_.

She saved people. She improved the suit. Over and over. Save them, improve, save them, improve. As if that could somehow make up for not saving—not being good enough to save—the one person who had mattered most.

After Rufus’s accident and the growing threats around the world, Denise Christopher had approached Lucy with a simple suggestion: join a team of high-powered individuals like herself. Make a difference.

Lucy had said yes.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure we should be disturbing him?” Lucy asked, keeping her voice soft to not disturb anyone. “We could be putting him in danger.”

“Gabriel might be hurtling towards sixty faster than he’d like, but trust me, he’s not afraid of a little rough and tumble,” Flynn replied.

The corner of Lucy’s mouth twisted up into a wry smile, and Flynn felt a rush of victory that he’d managed even that from her. To say they were all demoralized was an understatement.

And now the reports were coming in from news outlets.

Flynn had been saying for a while that a storm was coming. Public opinion had been in their favor for a while. First Wyatt was unearthed from the ice and the whole _Captain America is back_ thing happened. Then Lucy had come out as Iron Maiden, and the public had lost their collective shit. Then Emma, one Trickster Goddess of Betrayal, had tried to take over the world and Jiya had arrived in all her (literal) heavenly glory to help stop her, and despite San Francisco getting pretty destroyed in the process, everyone had loved them.

But public opinion was a fickle thing. And there were rarely right answers when it came to stopping power-hungry people bent on destruction or domination or both—just slightly-less-wrong answers. And you had to pick that answer in a split second.

The tide had been starting to turn.

And now—now it was a wave, a tsunami, headed straight for them.

Flynn wanted to reach out, to take Lucy’s hand, to assure her that it was all right—no matter what else, he’d keep them safe. Wyatt, displaced and out of time, disoriented and isolated, a soldier looking for a war. Lucy, riddled with guilt and the burden of family legacy, her PTSD rising up to drown her the moment her guard was down. Jiya, cursed with visions throughout time, a goddess and yet powerless to stop prophecy. Rufus with a raging internal monster he couldn’t control, not even allowed to be righteously angry, never allowed to slip up, to crumble, to lose control or be anything other than the perfect, civilized scientist.

Amy. Brainwashed, controlled, conditioned Amy, Amy with red in her ledger, Amy who thought her sister couldn’t possibly love her after all Amy had done.

Flynn would keep them safe. He’d keep them all safe.

But he didn’t know where the lines were with Lucy. Sometimes he thought—but it didn’t matter. Lucy was their leader, and she was a compassionate and loving one. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking he was something more to her.

Even if he desperately wanted to be.

 

* * *

 

Flynn had lost a family once.

Asher had been a showman, a performer, including doing trick stunts with arrows. Flynn had taken to it easily, whether the performance was _Hamlet_ or doing the old William Tell trick.

Gabriel, his half-brother, had not.

It didn’t help that Asher was the mean kind of drinker, and Gabriel had a fire in him that Flynn had to cultivate. Flynn wanted to please, to make the ones he loved happy, and he couldn’t understand how his mother was sad all the time, how his father could lash out at the least provocation.

One night, the fight between Gabriel and Asher had gotten bad. Real bad. And Flynn could see it happening, even though he couldn’t stop it—Asher reaching for Gabriel, and Asher was bigger and stronger—

Maria had gotten in between.

Flynn could be honest with himself, now: he’d gotten into SHIELD because of Connor Mason, because rumor had it that Mason was trying to build a time machine. Oh sure, it was important to keep it out of the hands of Rittenhouse, but Flynn had known that if he could just earn a trip, a single trip in that machine, he’d go back to that night.

He’d keep his mother alive, protect her the way he should have that day.

But time travel was a finicky thing, and after a test trip had rendered Rufus into the Hulk, split his id and the rest of him into a superpowered version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mason had stopped practical tests, not wanting to risk anyone else, wracked with guilt over what he’d done to his adoptive son.

By then, well. He had been in enough wars, done enough missions. He’d asked Denise if he could settle into a security role close to home, for Lorena, for Iris.

Rittenhouse, however, hadn’t liked the idea of time travel slipping away from them.

Rufus had gotten to Mason in time.

Flynn hadn’t gotten to his wife and child.

After that it was a blur. Missions, farther and farther afield, always after a new operative, asking Denise for another target, another, just so long as they were Rittenhouse, until he could say he’d burned their whole operation to the ground, an arrow in every skull.

_Your latest target is Rittenhouse’s newest operative. And their deadliest. The Black Widow._

It was in São Paulo that he’d finally started to piece himself back together.

He’d killed a Rittenhouse operative who had ties to the Black Widow—supposedly one of her previous handlers. On the man’s body had been a journal.

A journal belonging to one Lucy Preston.

The journal told a haunting story—of Lucy’s loneliness, her fights with her mother, her feeling of being out of place in the world. They told of being kidnapped, of being hurt unimaginably, of refusing to give in.

Key words in the journal were circled.

That was when he’d started to put the pieces together. Why else would Black Widow’s handler have the journal of a millionaire? A millionaire who conveniently had a missing sister who had vanished shortly before the Black Widow had emerged?

Flynn had gone against orders for the first time that mission. When Amy had come for him, he had been ready. He’d decoded the circled words, known the phrases. How they had controlled her mind, trapped her within herself.

He’d taken her home to SHIELD, and he’d worked with her, every day, until she was herself again.

Until he and Denise could call Lucy in to see her.

“You saved her?” Lucy had asked, her voice cracking.

“I…” Flynn hadn’t known what else to say.

Lucy had launched herself at him, grabbing hold tightly. “You _saved_ her,” she’d choked, right at his ear, her lips brushing the shell. “You saved her, you saved _her_.”

Flynn hadn’t done it for Lucy, or for anyone, other than Amy herself and for his own conscience.

But after that—yeah, it could be said that pretty much everything he did was for Lucy.

 

* * *

 

Gabriel Thompkins’ farmhouse was ramshackle and quaint and absolutely beautiful.

Not that any of the team were able to appreciate it in their current state.

Wyatt woke up and Flynn got an arm around him, helping him to the door. Jiya was able to carry Rufus alone with her super strength, although she looked dead on her feet. Lucy put on the arms of her suit and used them to carry her sister, Amy’s body terrifyingly small and limp.

They’d gotten royally fucked today.

Wyatt could admit—the super serum had made him a little cocky. Jess had warned him about that, before she’d died. “You’re not the only super human out there anymore,” she’d whispered. “You have to be careful, honey. Watch your six.”

That had been fun. He could fight sentient robots, aliens, a goddamn goddess of betrayal from another dimension, but he was powerless against Alzheimer’s. Against time. Stuck in that ice for years, decades, missing out on his wife, his friends, his life.

Jess hadn’t been idle, of course she hadn’t. She’d founded SHIELD, she’d continued the good fight. She’d held back Rittenhouse again and again, got Rufus help, endorsed Lucy as Iron Maiden.

Wyatt was so goddamn proud of her. He just wished—they’d had more time.

Wherever she was now she was laughing her ass off as Flynn had to explain the situation to Gabriel in a rapid mixture of French and Croatian while Wyatt was draped over him. If Gabriel was shocked at finding Captain America, Iron Maiden, the Hulk, the Black Widow, and the Goddess of Lightning and Prophecy on his front porch, three of them beaten within an inch of their lives, along with his estranged brother…

Well. Gabriel had lived in France for the past decade. He knew better than to show any emotion other than idle disdain.

They were ushered inside, and Flynn helped Wyatt to sink down into a chair. “How you holding up, captain?”

Wyatt snorted, leaning into the touch as Flynn ran a hand through his hair. Flynn had calluses all over his hands from his arrows, but somehow, his touch was the softest Wyatt had ever known. “I’m not really a captain y’know. I’m a Sergeant Major.”

“You’ve mentioned this before. A few dozen times.”

“Have I?”

“Lucy, we can’t rule out concussion for Mr. Stars and Stripes over here.”

“Noted.” Lucy walked over and behind her, Wyatt could see Amy was sitting up, gratefully accepting a glass of water from Gabriel. Rufus and Jiya were gone—upstairs, most likely, so Rufus could keep sleeping.

Lucy crouched down and held her hand out in front of Wyatt. “Okay, ETHAN, run diagnostics.”

ETHAN, the artificial intelligence that served as Lucy’s… well, butler-slash-personal assistant-slash-suit operator, was named after her biological grandfather. _The one member of the Cahill family who isn’t a power-grabbing asshat,_ she’d told Wyatt once.

“Certainly, Miss Lucy,” Ethan’s smooth, ‘50s transcontinental accent emanated from the suit.

There was a whirring noise, and then a soft blue light ran over Wyatt’s body for a moment before cutting out.

“Mr. Logan’s body is already healing itself,” ETHAN announced. “No permanent damage. Suggesting rest and fluids.”

“Good,” Flynn rumbled quietly, his hand still in Wyatt’s hair.

Wyatt’s heart thumped painfully.

The fact was—Wyatt loved Jess. Had loved her even while she was eighty-three in a nursing home.

But he had been falling for Flynn and Lucy since he’d met them.

He’d discussed it with Jess, once, feeling like he was betraying her. “Look at me,” she’d said, gesturing at herself. “Wyatt. It’s possible to love more than one person, and I can’t fill all of your needs. I can’t live a life with you. I’m stuck here, and you’re still young, you’re still out there, living. It’s not a betrayal to love people because each one fills a different need.”

Of course, none of this really mattered since he couldn’t seem to be able to tell them how he felt.

“Rest,” Lucy advised. She got up, a little clumsy, exhaustion finally kicking in, and Flynn caught her.

“Whoa, there. I think someone else needs rest and fluids.”

“I’ve made up the spare room,” Gabriel said, entering from the kitchen with more water. “Dr. Carlin and Jiya are in the master.”

Flynn didn’t remove his hand from Wyatt’s hair, or his other hand from around Lucy’s upper arm as he supported her. Gabriel handed Lucy and Wyatt each a glass of water. “Lucy can take the spare,” Flynn said. “I’ll take the couch.”

“You won’t fit on the couch,” Wyatt mumbled as he sipped carefully. “You’re too tall. I’ll take it.”

Flynn flushed. “I…”

“I don’t mind sharing,” Lucy said, dismissing her suit and stepping out of it. “We’re all adults here. Or you two can share and I can take the couch.”

Flynn’s face got even pinker. “I was the least injured today. You two need a proper bed.”

“I’m fine,” Lucy replied. Now that she was out of her suit she was just in a t-shirt and yoga pants, both designed for comfort in the suit, that ever-present soft blue light emanating from her chest. The miniature arc reactor in Lucy’s chest had been poisoning her for a time until she’d fixed it with help from Mason and Rufus. Now instead of a simple circle it looked like three overlapping, curving pieces that together created a circle, with a smaller circle in the middle. It almost, but not quite, looked like an eye.

Peeking out from underneath her shirt sleeves, Wyatt could see the scars from her time in the desert. Lucy never wore skimpy clothing, opting for vintage chic instead, including gloves. Wyatt had shrapnel scars on his back from the lab explosion that had killed Dr. Bruhl, the man who’d invented his super serum. He understood how it felt to want to hide the scars—but at least his were more easily tucked away, and more easily explained, than Lucy’s.

All this time, he still didn’t know exactly what had happened to her. He could only guess by the map of her body—what glimpses of it he could see, anyway.

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “You fought a Hulk by yourself.”

“And Wyatt fought a robot bent on taking over the world.”

“Remind me to thank Mason for that,” Wyatt said faintly.

“Or,” Gabriel said, in the tone of someone who is French and knows all about the _ménage à trois_ and has no patience for idiot prudish touch-starved Americans, “you could simply all share the room, and I will take the couch, since I am the host and I get the final say in hospitality.”

“…or we could do that,” Flynn said, his tone matching that of a man being brought to the guillotine.

Flynn half-carried Wyatt up the stairs, and both he and Lucy patiently stripped him out of his layers of uniform.

When Wyatt had dreamed about this—and he had, many, many times—he was a lot more awake for it, and a lot less bruised, and they were in Preston Tower in San Francisco, and there was considerably more alcohol involved.

“You dreamed about us stripping you?” Lucy asked, sounding amused.

Ah. So he was at the point where he was saying shit out loud. Fun.

“I’m going to sleep for another seventy years,” Wyatt announced.

Lucy and Flynn’s faces were absurdly fond. “You do that,” Flynn said softly.

Wyatt barely even remembered his head hitting the pillow.

 

* * *

 

Amy swung her legs as she sat on the table, eating an apple. Gabriel was quite nice about her sitting on his furniture and not talking and all that. Most people got creeped out.

She knew that she did things weirdly. She just didn’t always know what she did that was weird because it was her, Amy Preston, or because it was something Rittenhouse had twisted in her, made her forget, or remember differently.

“You don’t look like him,” she noted to Gabriel, the news playing softly in the background.

“Flynn takes after his father,” Gabriel replied, chopping up onions for an omelet. “In looks only, thank God.”

Amy stopped swinging her legs. “He told me that I reminded him of Maria. That was why he had to save me.”

Gabriel paused, his knife frozen on the cutting board. “Oh?” he asked, his tone light.

People tended to think that Amy didn’t understand them, when it was quite the opposite. She understood people far more than was comfortable. It was herself that she no longer understood.

“You think he should stop feeling guilty,” she said. “For not saving her.”

Gabriel went back to cutting vegetables. “He was a child. Ten years old. I was twenty-four. If anyone should have saved her—should have gotten both of them out sooner—it should have been me. Garcia has a… a tragic hero complex.”

He turned, looking at her. “I’m almost glad he has it, though, if it allowed him to save you. I’ve heard—a little. Enough. From your trial after the Rittenhouse infiltration into Mason Industries and SHIELD was made public.” Amy noted that Gabriel had the same eyes as his mother—Flynn had shown her a picture of her, once. She’d been beautiful.

Gabriel turned back to the vegetables. “It was horrific, what was done to you. And your sister.”

“We adapted.”

“There is now a type of bacteria that eats plastic. Raccoons thrive in our trash.” Gabriel’s voice was bitter. “Just because they adapted doesn’t mean they should have had to.”

“Rufus and Jiya,” Amy said.

“What?” Gabriel asked—and then Rufus and Jiya were entering the kitchen.

Jiya always carried with her a faint smell of ozone. Rufus had a heavy tread that he could never disguise, like his body weighed him down, tried to drag him to the floor.

“You look better,” Amy noted.

“What would you like in your omelet?” Gabriel asked.

Rufus sat down heavily, and Jiya sat next to him, kissing his shoulder. “Coffee,” she said. “If you have it.”

“Cheese and green peppers,” Rufus said, answering Gabriel’s question.

Amy passed the coffee over to Jiya.

“What’s on the news?” Rufus asked.

“Riots in Paris,” Amy lied.

Lies came easily to her. Sometimes she forgot what the truth was, and couldn’t find it when she searched for it, like a marble skittering along the ground, just out of her reach as she scrambled for it.

She’d tell them about Denise once the other three were awake.

 

* * *

 

Lucy woke up warm.

The arc reactor in her chest—her Lifeboat, as Mason fondly called it—wasn’t exactly warm. Most people thought it was. But it wasn’t exactly keeping her from dying of hypothermia.

Sometimes she wanted to rip it right out of her chest. She hated it, hated it, _hated it_ with every fiber of her. It glowed like a beacon, a constant reminder to everyone of who she was, what she’d been through, that she wasn’t normal, would never be normal again. It caused people to stare at her like a savior, like a freak, like a spoiled brat, like a particularly fascinating science experiment.

Didn’t help that it was situated right in the middle of her chest, just above and between her breasts.

Made bra shopping a real fun adventure.

But it was a part of her now. Just like her scars, and her memories, and her family legacy, and Amy, and everything else.

Might as well use it to help people, right?

But now—now she was warm, and more than that, she was held. Cradled.

Tears sprang into her eyes. When was the last time someone had held her like this? Noah? He had moved on, thinking she was dead, and when she’d come back as Iron Maiden—he had thought she’d just hang up the suit.

Hang it up. As if it wasn’t a part of her.

Someone in front of her, his back to her chest, turned onto his front and groaned. “The second day is the fucking worst,” Wyatt mumbled.

“Do some yoga, soldier boy, serum can’t fix everything,” Flynn murmured, his mouth right by Lucy’s ear.

Oh, _oh_. Flynn was holding her, wrapped around her like he thought a bomb might drop on them and he’d shield her with his body, and Wyatt was in front of her, stretching in bed and both of them were so warm and for the first time since she’d been dragged out of a convoy into the harsh desert and a bag put over her head, she felt safe.

She wanted to stay like this forever.

But they were heroes. Heroes didn’t get to sleep in.

“We have to check on Mothership,” Lucy whispered. Mason’s malfunctioning security robot was not going to remain idle while they all licked their wounds.

Flynn tensed, and she hated that. She turned in his arms, rolling to face him.

He was so lovely. She’d build a hundred, a thousand suits if it meant she never got to see that weary look in his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Sorry for dragging him again and again into war when Flynn just wanted to make coffee and watch old movies, sorry for forcing him to invade his brother’s house, sorry for depending on him so much, sorry for loving him when his heart was long buried with his wife and child.

Flynn looked horrified that she was apologizing. “For what?” he asked.

“I could’ve handled it—”

“You handled it well, Lucy. You’re our leader, and you handled it well.”

“I was the fuckin’ idiot,” Wyatt mumbled. “Jumped right in there. Fuckin’ robots.”

Lucy forced herself to sit up and reached for her phone. She tried not to cover herself with the sheet as she felt Flynn and Wyatt struggle not to stare.

She’d been so exhausted last night, she’d just stripped off her shirt. Wearing just her underwear while sleeping in bed and cuddling with the two men she had feelings for was a bad enough problem on its own, but with her scars on top of it…

They looked like—like poison. Black and dark purple, on her shoulders and back and chest, the infection that the arc reactor kept at bay. That wasn’t even counting the raised lines, far too methodical for a simple car accident or even a bomb, the burn marks and cuts where metal had seared and sliced.

For battle-hardened men like Flynn and Wyatt, it was obvious that she’d gotten her marks from patient, thorough torture.

Lucy snatched up her phone. “ETHAN, any missed calls?”

“Several, Miss Lucy. Ten from Denise Christopher. Five from Connor Mason. Five from—”

“Thank you, ETHAN, I don’t care about anyone else.” Lucy saw she had a voicemail and pressed the speaker button before playing it.

“Lucy.” Denise Christopher, director of SHIELD, did not sound panicked because that was not in her nature. But she did sound more… terse than usual. “I got your message that you all are safe. This line is as encrypted as Mason could make it. Lucy… you need to defeat Mothership, and fast. And if you could look especially heroic while doing it, I’d appreciate that. I can’t say more right now but the United Nations is calling an emergency meeting so that should give you an idea of the kind of shit we’re all in. Call me when you can.”

“The United Nations?” Wyatt said. “What do they think they can do that we can’t?”

Flynn sighed and reached across Lucy to push Wyatt’s hair out of his face. “I don’t know, _dječak vojnik_ , but I think we’re going to find out whether we want to or not.”

The bedroom door opened and Jiya stuck her head in. “I hate to break up the threesome,” she said, in the tone of someone who knew one hundred percent that there was no sort of sexual threesome going on, and was furthermore deeply disappointed about that fact, “but you guys need to come see the news.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn knew that glowering at the television wasn’t going to change the news on it, but it sure did help him feel better.

Waking up with Lucy safe in his arms—safe, secure, warm, alive, trusting in his arms—with Wyatt just on the other side, their legs tangled and his arm reaching far enough to rest his hand on Wyatt’s hip… that had been the best morning he’d woken up to since Lorena and Iris had died.

And then the news just had to go and ruin it.

As if Mothership running around trying to destroy the human race wasn’t bad enough. Now the world was apparently calling for superhumans to be ‘regulated’. Saying that vigilantes needed to be registered. The U.N. was calling an emergency meeting about it.

“The fact that a terrorist, white supremacist organization like Rittenhouse could infiltrate SHIELD and Mason Industries for so long,” one spokeswoman said, “is a testament to how we have failed in proper, legal regulations. These shadowy organizations must be brought into the light. There must be accountability. And that includes these superhumans.”

“You know this technically doesn’t affect me,” Jiya announced, sitting with Rufus and on her tenth cup of coffee. “I’m not even a citizen of Earth.”

“Are superhumans going to have to sit at the back of the bus now?” Rufus snarked.

“We can deal with this later,” Lucy said. “Right now, we need to defeat Mothership. This—this issue, it’s distracting us from the real, immediate problem. And that’s the—the crazy robot running around.”

“So we’re just going to ignore a U.N. summons?” Wyatt asked.

“To save the world? Um, yes?” Lucy replied.

Wyatt frowned at the television and oh, boy, Flynn knew that look. He didn’t like it.

Wyatt came from the 1930s, the Depression, he came from the Dust Bowl and an abusive father, and the army had given him stability and value for the first time. And, well, he was white and male. And supposedly straight, although Flynn had caught Wyatt glancing at him enough times when they changed into their suits to suspect that wasn’t really the case even if Wyatt never got around to admitting it.

“So we’ll have the United Nations to report to,” he said. “How is that a bad thing? They’re all about harmony, about promoting peace, isn’t that good?”

“They want us to be registered,” Lucy said. “As in, a list of all superhumans. As in, it’s illegal to not report you’re a superhuman.”

“What’s their criteria?” Rufus asked. “Lucy’s nothing without her suit, does she count? At what point does Flynn’s archery go from just Olympic levels to superhuman? If we were working for a quasi-government agency then are we really vigilantes? Who draws the line, and how?”

“Lack of accountability created Mothership,” Wyatt pointed out. “It created Rufus’s condition.”

“I agree that there has to be some kind of—of accountability,” Lucy said. “What happened with Rittenhouse in SHIELD, it wasn’t right, but—but Wyatt don’t you see where this is going? First it’s registering, then it’s regulating and checking up on us, then it’s rounding us up—”

“Our grandparents were in Auschwitz,” Amy said, and her voice was deadly sharp and quiet. “I don’t fancy going through that again. Not when I just got out of another kind of camp, thanks.”

Flynn reached over and squeezed her shoulder. He was well aware that the only other person allowed to touch Amy without having to ask first was Lucy, and it humbled him, to know that Amy trusted him that much.

Amy put her hand over his, squeezing in response before dropping her hand away. Flynn let go and moved to put himself between Lucy and Wyatt, who were glaring daggers.

“I’ve seen what happens when there’s nobody to check up on things,” Wyatt said. “You know what happened to the soldiers who were before me, the other programs that tried to imitate me afterwards, I know you saw the pictures, Lucy, you know what happened to them!  You know what happened to Dave!”

Dave Baumgardner, Wyatt’s best friend in the war—Flynn had seen the pictures, too.

They weren’t pretty.

“But who are we being held accountable to?” Lucy demanded. “And how in the split second of battle are we supposed to make decisions if we have a committee we have to consult with first? How do we know that this list won’t fall into the wrong hands? How do we know—” She gestured angrily at the television. “They’re talking about us on there like we’re weapons! Like we’re not people! And I am a person!” Lucy’s voice rose to a dangerous, hysterical pitch. “I’m a person! I’m not a weapon! I’m not some object to fire at will at where they say and when! I have free will! They won’t make me a weapon, they won’t make me, they can’t make me!”

Amy moved the same time Flynn did, reaching for Lucy as her eyes got wild and her chest heaved, but she stepped back, shrinking from all of them. “I—” Her gaze darted around wildly, seeking an exit, claustrophobia setting in. “I—I’m going for a walk.”

She hurried out of the house, slamming the front door.

Amy paused. “I could go after her,” she said softly. “But…”

_But I don’t think I can be the Amy she wants anymore._

Jiya stood up. “I’ll go after her.”

Rufus kissed the back of her knuckles, and then Jiya followed Lucy out the front.

Wyatt scrubbed a hand over his face. “They have a point,” he said quietly. “We can’t just—we have all this—this power—what if—I don’t know, I just—”

“Nobody can tell you what to do with your ability to play guitar,” Flynn said. “Nobody should tell you what to do with your sexuality, or your race, or your religion, or your gender. How is this any different? Who you love, how you worship, that’s your business. They might not like that we’re more powerful than they are, but when you start to try to control people—when you start to treat them like weapons instead of people… that’s when the danger sets in. When they’re no longer people.”

Gabriel gave Rufus a significant look, and the two of them got up and went out back ‘to chop wood’.

Wyatt’s voice was small. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he whispered. “She’s the last person I want to hurt.”

“I know.”

Wyatt looked at him desperately. “How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you say the right things, how do you understand, how do you—I feel like I’m out of place, out of time, in the wrong movie or something.”

Flynn drummed his fingers on the table, ignoring the news in the background, the reporters and politicians condemning them. “I like to think you’re in your right place,” he said eventually. “With us. I like to think… that’s where you belong.”

“I’d like to belong there,” Wyatt said eventually, after the silence stretched on. “I’d like…” He stopped and looked at Flynn’s hands on the table.

Flynn slid his hand across, catching Wyatt’s fingers with his own. Wyatt flushed, but glanced his eyes up, meeting Flynn’s gaze.

Flynn took a deep breath. “We’re people, Wyatt. Not weapons. If Rittenhouse infiltrating SHIELD proved anything, it’s that we can’t always trust the people giving us the orders. We can’t just blindly put our faith in governments or corporations. What if they give an order you don’t like? They wanted to just nuke San Francisco when Emma was attacking. We went against that order. If we go to the U.N., and agree to whatever it is they’re cooking up, we won’t have the freedom to do that anymore. To make that choice.”

He squeezed gently. “I know that you value your ability to do that. To make choices. Don’t… how many arguments have we had over this sort of bullshit?”

“I lost track around twenty-five, but I think Amy’s got a tally going.” Wyatt’s mouth twitched a little in amusement.

Flynn held onto Wyatt’s hand, shifted his fingers to move them underneath Wyatt’s, and slowly—so slowly he thought he was moving through molasses—lifted Wyatt’s hand up to his mouth.

He watched Wyatt’s eyes go dark and painfully soft as he pressed his lips to Wyatt’s knuckles. They were a team of superheroes—they worked in battle, with weapons and adversaries screaming and falling buildings and half the time just barely able to yell at each other from half a mile apart over their headsets. They weren’t exactly the best at talking.

But reading between the words, reading each other’s bodies—that they were very, very good at.

Flynn read the way Wyatt’s throat caught, the way his hand tightened on Flynn’s, the way his knuckles pushed up into Flynn’s lips momentarily, the way Wyatt’s gaze was locked on Flynn’s face.

And he knew. And he knew that Wyatt knew, what Wyatt was reading in Flynn’s soft kiss, his eyes, his body curling towards Wyatt.

Flynn gently set Wyatt’s hand down. “Go and apologize.”

Wyatt nodded.

 

* * *

 

Lucy couldn’t breathe. She was outside, now, that was better, but she still couldn’t quite…

_We will make you a weapon._

_If you won’t make them for us, you will be our weapon._

_You’ll have no choice but to make what we want when it’s burning inside you._

“Hey.” Jiya’s voice sounded very far away, and yet it always carried the crack of lightning. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

Lucy nodded. She needed something grounding right now.

Jiya’s hand gently landed on her shoulder, her thumb stroking back and forth. “You’re okay. I’m here. Breathe with me. Here.”

Jiya took Lucy’s hand and pressed it to Jiya’s chest. She was without her celestial armor, the dark plates that looked like dim, fractured doorways to other worlds, and so Lucy could feel the warmth of her, feel her heartbeat. “Breathe in time with me.”

Lucy struggled to match Jiya’s deep, even breaths. “That’s it,” Jiya murmured.

She heard footsteps on the grass behind them. Her vision was starting to clear—she was outside, the sky was a bright blue, there was greenery and rolling hills everywhere.

“Hey, uh, Jiya, is it okay if I… if we get a moment alone?”

Jiya looked at Lucy.

Lucy nodded.

Jiya shrugged and went back towards the house, and Lucy turned to face Wyatt.

Wyatt shifted his weight. “I forget, sometimes, that I volunteered.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow.

“I volunteered, and yeah the process was painful as fuck, but—I had people cheering for me. I had a theme song, y’know?” He shrugged. “And I see—I see what happens when people like us… when people with power like us think that they’re above the law. That this power gives us some kind of privilege. I know, ironic, coming from a white man, but honestly—that scares me, that there’s no—no laws or anything to help protect people because what if I turned out a dick? What if someone like me decides to be a dictator? What if—”

“They can follow the same laws as the rest of humanity,” Lucy pointed out, struggling to keep the anger out of her voice. “It doesn’t mean putting us on what could become a hit list.”

Wyatt grimaced. “I’m not—I’m not doing this right. I’m trying to apologize.”

“Apologies usually come with the words _I’m_ and _sorry_ attached.”

“Yeah, yeah, they do. I just—I wanted to explain. Because I forget, sometimes. I forget that you didn’t ask for this. Amy didn’t ask for this. Neither did Rufus. Jiya was born with her powers, she didn’t have a choice. I had a choice and I signed up and I need—I need to be better about remembering that my experiences aren’t everyone else’s.”

Lucy folded her arms. “That’ll do, to start.”

Wyatt held out his hands. “You’re the leader, Lucy. I’ll do whatever you say.”

Lucy moved forward, taking his hands, squeezing them. “We’re going to stop Mothership. And then we are going to the United Nations, and we’re telling them where to stick their registry idea.”

Wyatt gave her a cocky half-smile. “Yes, ma’am.” He dropped his hands down, but didn’t let go of hers. His smile slid away. “Lucy?”

“Yes?”

“You know I… you know… Flynn and I, you know how we—we’d follow you anywhere.”

Lucy felt as though her scars were burning under her shirt, glowing like her reactor, marking her for Wyatt to see. “I’m not sure I’m the kind of person you should be following.”

“This morning,” Wyatt said, his voice soft but still cracking around the edges, fragile, like a bird breaking out of an eggshell, breaking open the truth, “you know that—that’s all I—all I could ever—you know that you’re worth—and we could all, we could die, Mothership, she’s powerful, she’s so powerful and we all could be dust in a few hours and you need to know that’s the first morning I’ve been happy to open my eyes since they took me out of that ice.”

“I’m not Jess,” she told him.

“I think if we’re doing comparisons, Flynn’s more like Jess,” Wyatt noted.

“Why are you telling me this?” She could feel her own voice wobbling, betraying her.

“Because you need to know why we’re fighting. Or at least, why Flynn and I are fighting. Not because—not because we’re selfless heroes and it’s the right thing to do. But because—because I might be dead by tonight and you need to know that I’m doing this, and I know he’s doing this, for you. You’re why he’s here, Lucy.”

Lucy had asked Flynn, once, why he stuck around. Was it to keep one-upping Wyatt?

Flynn had said, with surprising passion, that he didn’t give a damn about Wyatt. But they’d been interrupted before she could ask why he was here, the alarm beacon going off because of course it had.

Now it seemed she was getting her answer.

“We’re not going to die,” she told him. “You’re not going to die, and neither is Flynn, neither am I. We’re going to make it through this. And then—if, if you really want, if you’re—if you’re sure, we can—I want more mornings like—I want to wake up like that, too.”

Wyatt pressed his forehead to hers, and for once, Lucy didn’t mind feeling seen.

 

* * *

 

Of course, when fighting an evil robot bent on destroying humanity while humanity itself wasn’t all that pleased with your existence, there wasn’t really a lot of time for love confessions.

How Rufus and Jiya managed them at least once every world-ending crisis, Wyatt had no clue.

But when he brought Lucy back to the house, everyone was packing up. Flynn was lost in a serious, terse discussion with Gabriel that it was probably best nobody interrupt—and Lucy visibly deflated but pulled herself together, forming a plan, checking in on Amy, reassuring Rufus that he could sit this one out if he wanted to.

Then they were flying in the Quinjet again, and then, well. Mothership.

Fun.

Wyatt had the shit beat out of him, including when he got clocked in the back of the head by _saeiqa_ when Jiya misjudged her aim as she threw it. Amy got into a competition of who could defeat the most robots with Flynn, so that throughout the battle it was like listening to fuckin’ Gimli and Legolas with the yells of “forty-five!” and “sixty-seven!”

Although Flynn was way hotter than Orlando Bloom, if you asked Wyatt.

Rufus lost control of the big guy again, so to speak, and Jiya had to clock _him_ in the back of the head—purposefully, this time—with her hammer to knock some sense back into him.

And then Mothership grabbed Lucy’s head.

Wyatt could hear the crunch of Lucy’s armor around her head, heard her scream—tried to pull himself up—

Jiya was off dealing with Rufus, escorting him off the battlefield now that he was back to being a fragile human again. Wyatt’s leg was trapped under rubble and he couldn’t see Flynn through the smoke and dust. “Lucy!”

Lucy tried to fire through her palm, but Mothership caught her hand. Wyatt could hear more crushing noises, heard Lucy scream again—fuck, if he could just get—just get this stupid rock off his leg—

“Get off my sister!”

Amy—the silent, the spy, the Black Widow—shoved her fist into Mothership’s robotic chest, activating her Widow’s Bite, the high-powered wrist taser she always wore.

“You foolish, stupid little girl,” Mothership hissed, grabbing Amy’s arm. “To think you could defeat me—”

“Not defeat.” Amy’s voice rang with vicious triumph. “Distract.”

 _Saeiqa_ slammed into the side of Mothership’s head, knocking it clean off, before the hammer slammed back down again, and again, and again, crushing the robot’s database and control center.

All around them, the minion robots fell to the ground.

Lucy collapsed, her helmet coming off to expose her face, showing the trickles of blood, the bruises from being crushed. She coughed violently as Amy grabbed her, steadied her.

Wyatt looked up at Flynn—still holding the hammer.

He looked a little shocked that it was still in his hand, that he’d actually been able to lift it.

Wyatt grinned. “Only whoever be worthy,” he recited at Flynn. He’d heard it enough times from Jiya—they all had—that he knew it by heart. “Only they can wield the thunderbolt.”

Flynn just kept gaping.

Amy helped Lucy stagger to her feet, and then Wyatt felt the stone on his leg being lifted.

He turned to see Jiya picking it up with one hand, because Jiya was a showoff.

“You okay there buddy?” Rufus asked, offering him a hand.

Wyatt accepted it, letting Rufus pull himself up. “Yeah.” He winced. “You?”

“Seriously considering retirement, but otherwise…” Rufus shrugged.

Lucy was on her feet, and Flynn dropped the hammer on the ground, realizing that everyone was staring at him holding it. “You—you all right?” he asked. “You look—I mean you look good? Considering?”

Lucy looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “Honestly, Garcia, you moron,” she said, and then she was grabbing him and kissing him for all she was worth.

Amy wolf whistled.

Flynn looked completely stunned, and then seemed to remember that in kissing, it was helpful if both people participated, and grabbed Lucy back, holding her carefully as the kiss deepened.

Wyatt grinned, then winced, realizing that oh yes, he’d been hit in the jaw at one point, smiling was out of the question for the next twenty-four hours.

Lucy pulled back, then looked at Wyatt, winking.

“I missed something,” Rufus said. “I definitely missed something. Something—when did—what?”

“I’ll explain on the way to the U.N.,” Jiya said knowingly.

“We’re agreed, then?” Lucy asked, catching the tail end of this as Wyatt gingerly walked over to her. He caught Flynn’s hand, squeezing, as Flynn continued to look like he’d been concussed. “We’re fighting this… registration thing?”

Everyone nodded. “You bet,” Amy said.

Lucy grinned, still holding onto Flynn. “Then, Avengers…”

**Author's Note:**

> Saeiqa = Arabic for ‘thunderbolt’, pronounced ‘sigh-kwa’ with the emphasis on the ‘igh’ and a very shortened ‘kwa’.  
> dječak vojnik = soldier boy in Croatian


End file.
